“Surely you’re not leaving?” Lia demanded. “I prepared a guest room for you…”
Yes, he’d seen the honeymoon suite, and he wanted no part of it.
“Sorry,” he bit out. “We can’t stay.”
Lia’s eyes widened. Talos knew he was being incredibly callous but he would explain to Roark later. His old friend would understand, and he’d make his amends to his wife. All Talos knew was that he couldn’t stay for another hour in this romantic place so filled with happy dreams that for him would always be lies.
Talos broke out in a cold sweat.
He had to get out of here.
He had to end this.
He’d won his objective. Eve was his wife. His war was half won. Now all he had to do was make her regain her memory. Now. Before the temptation was too much.
Before Eve finished what she’d started three months ago, and finally crushed him into ashes and dust.
He abruptly turned on his heel, whirling away from the terrace with its overhanging wisteria and fairy lights gleaming in the night.
“Talos? Talos!” he heard his wife cry after him as he strode into the villa, but he didn’t look back. Instead, he opened his cell phone and started to bark out orders.
Eve had started this war three months ago.
Now he would finish it.
“Mrs. Xenakis, the plane will be landing shortly.”
Eve woke up blearily to discover a pretty brunette flight attendant standing over her, holding a tray. Sitting up straight in the white leather chair, she rubbed her eyes, feeling sweaty and disoriented. She smoothed her wedding dress with her hands, but it didn’t help. The cream-colored silk was wrinkled and wilted.
Just like her wedding day.
Eve’s head was still spinning. One moment, she’d been a happy bride, pledging her fealty and her faith to the father of her unborn child.
The next, Talos had been dragging her from the castle, pushing her into a car that took them back to the private airport. They’d left without even properly thanking Lia and Roark for the lovely wedding they’d created. Talos had forced her to leave the cheerfully decorated table with its flowers and lights, the homemade pasta and bread. They’d fled the celebration as if they were thieves in the night, rudely abandoning their kind hosts without explanation as Talos herded her onto his private plane.
There, he’d utterly ignored her and refused to answer any of her questions. He’d gone to the other side of the large cabin to a desk that was as far away from Eve as possible. He’d barked an order to a flight attendant for a shot of Scotch whisky—then hadn’t even drunk it. He’d just taken a deep sniff of the amber-colored Scotch before handing it back, telling the flight attendant to pour it out.
Had he gone mad?
Or had she?
He’d spent the rest of the short flight working on his computer. Bewildered and hurt, Eve had fallen asleep staring out the small window of the plane, watching the lights of the Italian coastline disappear over the black emptiness of the Adriatic.
Now, as she looked out the small round window, she saw small clusters of lights amid the darkness, like scattered stars in the night. “Where are we?”
“Beginning our descent into Athens, madam.”
“Athens!” Eve cried. “How long was I sleeping?”
The brunette gave a sympathetic smile. “Almost two hours.”
Two hours. She glanced over at her new husband, who was still sitting at his desk, staring at his laptop screen with hard eyes.
Maybe he has work to do, she tried to tell herself. Urgent, unavoidable work that he was desperate to finish so they could properly enjoy our honeymoon.
But she wasn’t completely comforted by her explanation. Not when he’d turned so cold and unresponsive from the moment he’d become her husband.
It was almost as if he were angry at her. But that didn’t make sense. Hadn’t he come to London, desperate to find her? Hadn’t he proposed marriage when he found out she was pregnant with his child? Hadn’t he spent days passionately, tenderly convincing her to marry him?